C++Now! 2012 slides

[Peter Alexander]

On Thursday, 7 June 2012 at 20:04:56 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 06/07/2012 08:34 PM, Peter Alexander wrote:
>>
>> I find this very ugly. To be honest, I would be much happier 
>> without all
>> that mostNegative and common type stuff.
>> If I want to get the min
>> between a short and an int I'll just cast them appropriately.
>
> The mostNegative and common type stuff is there to enable 
> correct semantics for taking the minimum of signed and unsigned 
> values. Minimum of short and int would work fine without that.

I know what it's there for, I don't think it is necessary. I 
don't think people should be taking the min of signed and 
unsigned values. I don't think it's worth cluttering the 
implementation for this minor convenience.


>> I'd much rather have a simpler standard library than a 
>> complicated one for the
>> sake of a little convenience.
>>
>
> 'min' is not complicated.

It's more complicated than it could/should be:

T min(T)(T x, T y) { return x < y ? x : y; }

To be honest, I don't think the variadic argument versions are 
necessary either as it is just duplicating the functionality of 
reduce.